In lieu of chasing jargon, while visiting the Netherlands I was hunting flowers. The tulip fields were especially impressive in Noordoostpolster. On my trip, I learned that tulips originally come from Turkey; their name refers to a turban, likely because of the flower’s shape. From the Turkish word tülbent, we derive the Dutch tulpe, French tulipe, Italian tulipano, English tulip and Finnish tulppaani.
Names for many familiar flowers seem similar across many European languages. The rose is rooted in Greek rhodon, which has generated Dutch roos, English rose, Swedish ros, Russian roza, and many others. Also from the same word family is rhododendron (in Finnish alppiruusu ”alpine rose”), a combination of the Greek word rhodon ‘rose’ and dendron ‘tree’.
Greek narkissos apparently initially referred to our iris or some other lily instead of our current narcissus. The narko-beginning suggests that the original flower had some kind of drug effect; narkos refers to numbness. The name of a spectacular gladiolus (in Finnish miekkalilja ”sword lily”) comes from the Latin word, which means a small sword and has the same root as gladiator “swordsman”.
The Finnish name for violet is orvokki or orvonkukka (in English ”orphan flower”). In Finland, you can plant them in early spring; apparently hard conditions have made them tenacious survivors.